Ifeanyi Ibe
The departure of Stanford University’s president of seven years is traced back to stories written by Theo Baker in The Stanford Daily last December, Tom Jones writes in the Poynter.
Top-notch reporting by the student newspaper at Stanford University has led to the resignation of the university’s president.
Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne is stepping down after an independent review found significant flaws and uncorrected mistakes in studies he supervised going back decades. In addition, he will retract or add corrections to five papers in which he was the main author because the investigation found “manipulation of research data.”
However, the investigation determined that Tessier-Lavigne did not falsify data or commit fraud.
Still, Tessier-Lavigne is stepping down as president, a post he has held for seven years. And his departure from the office all tracks back to stories written by Theo Baker in The Stanford Daily last December. At the time, Baker talked to my colleague, Barbara Allen, saying, “As a student, I would prefer not to have any of this sort of thing going on. But as a journalist, I think it’s really important to talk about this sort of stuff.”
The New York Times Stephanie Saul wrote on Wednesday, “The accusations had first surfaced years ago on PubPeer, an online crowdsourcing site for publishing and discussing scientific work. But they resurfaced after the student newspaper, The Stanford Daily, published a series of articles questioning the accuracy and honesty of work produced in laboratories overseen by Dr Tessier-Lavigne.”
Tessier-Lavigne will no longer be president but will remain at Stanford as a professor of biology.
In a statement, Tessier-Lavigne said, “Although the report clearly refutes the allegations of fraud and misconduct that were made against me, for the good of the University, I have made the decision to step down as President effective August 31.”
The university review said some of the papers had “serious flaws” and that Tessier-Lavigne failed to “decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes” when concerns about the papers were brought to his attention.
The Stanford Daily won a 2022 George Polk Award for its work on this story. It was the first time an independent, student-run newspaper won that highly regarded award. Baker was honoured with a “Special Award.”
Baker is the son of New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, a staff writer at The New Yorker.
This, again, shows impressive and important work done by student journalists.
